Premature
A baby is born 50 days premature. What are the potential consequences for the development of the infant?
Happiness and worry at the same time: a newborn baby is always a source of joy for its parents and family, but sometimes it can be a source of worry too. This may, for instance, be the case when the baby is born 50 days premature, i.e. after a pregnancy of 32 weeks and 6 days. When a birth takes place between the 32nd and 37th week we call this a ‘moderate preterm’; this happens to 6% of all Dutch children. Such moderate preterm births can have consequences for the development of the infants. They face a greater risk of encountering a delay in, or problems with, their mental development and they often show behavioural problems. Attention problems, in particular, are frequent and these hinder both the learning processes and social relationships. Through our newest techniques, such as ‘eye-tracking’ and the ‘Bayley- III-NL development test’, we are now able to monitor the capacities of children as young as toddlers with respect to attention and cognition, as well as language and motor skills. As a result, we can trace developmental problems at a very early stage, thus allowing for an early treatment.